Auld Lang Syne
by ElvishKiwis Venerated Ancestor
Summary: Professor Digory Kirke awaits the visit of an old friend. Clouds of pipe tobacco and a cheery autumn fire induce recollections of past visits.
1. Prologue

_For Ariel with love. (ficathon 2013 entry)_

* * *

He strode up the gravel path on long legs, encased in fine quality, wool trousers: oblivious to the freshly trimmed box hedge, it's trimmings still scattered among the stones and it's leafy aroma lingering in the crisp frosty air.

"Gud Morn'n Sir.".

Wrenched abruptly from his musings, the gentleman lowered his thick, bushy eyebrows at the sight of the stout, elderly fellow, armed with clippers, diligently shaping the west facing side of the hedge. The scowl quickly softened to a smile, creasing the corners of his eyes, as the gentleman raised his homburg in greeting.

"You're at it early this morning, Thomas." He checked his stride and cast a rare and admiring glance about him, taking in the still vibrant rose garden, the towering oaks and dainty birches surrounding the neatly cut lawn. He tugged his ample beard absentmindedly as he regarded a newly raked pile of leaves collected in a fadge awaiting removal to the incinerator.

"How you manage to keep everything in such order is beyond me."

"We gotta 'ave it spiffing gud for Miss. Plummer's visit this arvo, Sir. Miss does lyke the garden"

The gentleman, who had resumed his walk, with an added spring in his step, didn't bother to answer except by lifting his homburg a second time. Mounting the steps to the side entrance of the large whitewashed manor, he let himself in, shutting the door firmly behind him.

Once inside, he hung his tweed jacket on the brass hook beside the door. He placed the homburg on the hat stand beside it, revealing grey disheveled locks, flattened from their natural curl, and resumed his stride, pausing as he passed the kitchen to inform Martha that he would take his breakfast in the library at her convenience.

After a quick clatter up stairs, which did not even wind him, The gentleman lowered himself into a shabby but comfortable leather chair, beside a newly lit fire and sighed contentedly.

He loaded and lit his pipe, which was conveniently placed on a small table -along with his tobacco pouch, and gazed steadily into the flames as the fragrant blue cloud mingled it's scent with that of crackling pine cone resin and the musty smell of ancient tomes, lining the walls around him.

Polly Plummer's bi-annual visits were always worth looking forward to.

She was one of the few outsiders he allowed to interrupt the quiet routine of his life.

He smiled again, recalling her last visit...


	2. Without Fledge

_It was the cloud formations that inspired the idea of the horse trek._

_The day after Polly's arrival, I took my breakfast at Thomas and Martha's cottage following my usual walk. Polly appeared younger and fresher after a night in Martha's spare room, overlooking the river and mountains beyond. The country air has always that effect on her. Each visit I ask her why she doesn't move out here permanently, but she just laughs and says something along the lines of: "If you're proposing marriage, Digory, the answer's No. We'd never get on if I didn't leave you alone for six months in between visits." _

_Much as I hate to admit it, she may have something there. Besides, she doesn't much like the vicar in our little parish. She prefers the rousing fervour of that young Martyn chap. back at Westminster.  
_

_The breezes were crisp but playful that morning and laden with the delicate sent of apple and orange blossom, so Martha suggested we eat on the Verandah overlooking the orchard.  
We had a jolly old reminisce together: _

_Polly recounted that escapade in the middle of the night when we picked fruit by moonlight and hoisted it up to her room on the second floor with a sheet from my bed. Thomas roared with laughter at that, and Martha did too. When she got her breath back she gave us a belated scolding for wrecking a perfectly good sheet.  
She had attributed the mud to me sleeping with my boots on._

_As if I would do such a thing._

_That sparked off my story about using old Duke, to reach the highest branches in the orchard one day, when we were too indolent to fetch a ladder. He didn't seem to mind our weight on his broad back as he contentedly munched the apples we shared with him._

_One thing led to another until one of us brought up that abandoned scheme we once had of the a pony trek.  
Ah, I know what it did it. _

_I was gazing at an interesting formation of cumulus congestus with pilei forming at each end while Polly told Martha about that incident in the well shaft. I noticed that the base cloud had shifted revealing some cirrus uncinus high in the stratosphere above it. It gave me the distinct impression of a winged horse -which of course put me in mind of our journey on Fledge all those years ago.  
I pointed it out to Polly, who recognised the form at once. She had to concoct an explanation based on a novel about a flying horse we had shared as youngsters, because Martha demanded to know how we knew what a flying horse looked like.  
Martha never had the benefit of a classical education._

_She retired with the dishes, and Thomas left to meet the compost truck. _

_Then I brought up the idea of renewing that old trek plan: Mother was no longer around to oppose the scheme and, although the presence of the Pilei was indicative of bad weather, that would give us the 3-4days we needed to sort out the details._

_Polly immediately agreed, eyes dancing with some of that gleam of delight she exuded on her first visit to the manor all those years ago.  
"It won't be quite so dangerous this time." I said, "I intend to take more for meals than a bag of toffees." _

_Martha was quite disapproving when she returned with my pipe and tobacco pouch.  
"At _your _age?" was her first reaction, followed closely by:_

"_I hope you don't expect Thomas to chaperone you. His back will not cope with sleeping on the hard ground."  
Of course neither would ours any longer which poured the icy contents of the bucket of reality to douse our enthusiasm. _

_But objections which might have swamped a pair of twelve year olds, became a raft, with which to ride over the cold water in comfort and ease, for a determined pair, entering into their seventh decade of life._

_We spent the rest of the day making lists and ordering supplies over my newly installed telephone. _

_A wonderful technological device that is. We only had to make one trip into town to withdraw money from the bank and collect the gear, rather than sending Thomas on half a dozen potentially fruitless excursions. If the operator was curious abut why I wanted the sail-maker, the glass merchant and the blacksmith one after another, then she kept her curiosity to herself._

_My projection of four days was slightly out. It took five, due to the difficulty in finding a camp stretcher large enough to fit Polly's preferred mattress. Thomas was obliged to adapt one by means of an extension. He didn't grumble about it however, for he was relieved of Chaperone duty by the eagerness of Charlie and his young bride, Sabina, to accompany us. After we set out, Charlie drove the cart with our supplies, and set up camp at the first site I had selected. That plan meant that each day we traveled light and had a hot meal waiting for us when we arrived. _

_Very agreeable meals they were too. I had Sabina promoted to head cook soon after that trip. Martha has enough to do just overseeing the house and staff. She should have had help long ago if I had noticed how tired she was each evening. I am indebted to Polly for enlightening me on that matter._

_The trek was invigorating._

_I felt the years slipping away, being in the saddle again: until of course we stopped for the night, when I felt them piling back on again. How my muscles ached that first night and the following morning. I have taken care to ride out at least once a week since then to keep my fitness up._

_I am glad I took the trouble to arrange those little surprises along the way. I am afraid Charlie thinks me quite eccentric after enlisting his assistance to tie all those Walker's toffees onto that elder sapling on the first night. Polly thought I was teasing, when I winked at her and planted one at it's base the night before.  
Her face the next morning was worth the trouble. I had been waiting in the bushes for twenty minutes for her to emerge once I heard her stirring inside the girls tent. She knew I was there because the second thing she saw after the toffees was a tell tail smoke ring rising from where I stood, chuckling at her._

_They don't make toffees like they used to, those ones got hopelessly gummed up in my dentures and neither of us felt like feasting on them for breakfast while the aroma of Sabina's sausages -cooked with damper over the open fire- was teasing our senses. My mouth waters now at the memory of that meal..._

"Ah, Sabina, I didn't hear you enter."  
The Professor stood quickly and removed his pipe and tobacco pouch from the side table to the mantle piece.

"Sausages for breakfast eh? I was just thinking about the first occasion I had to sample your sausages. I suppose it must have been the smells wafting upstairs.

Allow me?"

He took the empty tray from her and placed it near the door while Sabina poured his tea from the small white teapot, painted with roses, which he always used. It had been part of a set his Father brought home from India: commissioned to a local potter there. The shaping reflected it's exotic heritage, but the pink roses were just like the ones which grew in abundance in the manor gardens.

Professor Kirke, for this was the tall gentleman's name, settled back into the chair and ate with an appetite enhanced by the memory of that other meal in the woods on the manor estate..  
Wiping his mouth and fingers neatly on the linen napkin provided, he settled back into the chair with his tea cup and saucer and renewed his contemplation of the now, dying embers.

_Should rouse himself and place another log on them?  
No, those coals would suffice._

Besides, he was lost in another memory.

* * *

_It is my pleasure to acknowledge here the two people who inspired this story._

_Firstly, my friend and fellow ACA Forum-ite -Delia Anole, who brain-stormed with me about what to do with Ariel's Story idea. That was Fun Delia! We should do it again some time._

_And secondly, the Wonderfully talented Acacia59601 who wrote my favourite Narnia fanfic of all time: The Guardian. Not only did she inspire me to take this project on, but she kindly allowed me to lean on her ideas of what Polly and Digory would have been like in our world years later and the connections between Prof. Kirke and the Pevinsie family._  
_I suggest that, after you've reviewed this, *hopeful smile* you flip over to The Guardian and treat yourself._  
_WARNING: you will need tissues!_


	3. A Twilight Conversation

_He had ordered a huge sheet of glass to be fitted in front of a waterfall that he knew of, near the end of their trek. The joinery to hold it in place was cleverly concealed behind vines and foliage and disguised as rocks at the top._

_They rode right up into the foothills of the mountains behind the manor. When Polly saw the waterfall shimmering behind the glass, it looked as if it were frozen on top with the water still flowing behind. She was so surprised that she almost fell off her horse, who startled at her shriek of surprise. The waterfall was thinner than the original but enormously high because they were in a lush gully at the time. Of course she looked up, as everyone does when they see such a spectacular sight. At the top, but off to one side, was a flat grassy place with some kind of green wall. visible near the edge. She was so incredulous she turned to Digory with her mouth open -something she always told small children off for doing. He was calmly watching her reaction with a satisfied smile on his face, which made his eyes crease at the corners and twinkle like they used to when he got caught playing pranks on her in their teens._

_For a moment, the years rolled back from both of them and they were conspirators raiding the manor kitchen for a secret surprise picnic the had planned for Digory's parents anniversary. Or they had just arrived in the stable in time to witness the birth of Bertha's calf who struggled to it's wobbly feet and then tried to find a teat under Polly's legs instead of it's mother's._

_Polly looked up at the waterfall and the hilltop again then back at Digory._

_"How did you do it!" she asked, her voice quiet and hesitant, as if saying "Please tell me it's real..."_

_Digory just smiled and said "Do you want to take a closer look?"_

_The journey up the side of the waterfall was arduous and slow, but the horses managed it stoically. About an hour later they came over the crest of the last rise and found a meadow of wild brown grasses with a high wall ahead. Now that they were closer Polly could see that the wall was a kind of windbreak around a mountain hut. Digory had draped it in artificial turf* and set up another tree, just over the wall, laden with silver fruits which looked strangely like Christmas ornaments._

_This time he frowned and muttered, "It doesn't look at all authentic close up, but I DID only have five days."_

_Polly laughter was like the waterfall, tinkling and natural, refreshing his tired aching body and rewarding his efforts at the sight of her pleasure. She slid off her horse and ran the rest of the way to the wall, after handing the reins to Charlie. He had emerged from the hut at the sound of their approach, and was ready to take their tired mounts. Digory also dismounted and followed at his leisure enjoying the happy exclamations Polly was making as she discovered the stuffed pheasant in the boughs of the tree. (It had previously inhabited a case at the top of the west wing stair case)._

_From the hut came the delicious smell of a hearty chicken stew laden with ginger and onion._

* * *

_The sun was low in the sky as the two friends strolled to the far side of the grassy flatland, following the meal, and watched the swiftly flowing stream plummeting over the edge of the cliff to the gully they had traversed earlier that day._

_It was deep in shadow. Only the glinting foam, and the churning water which caused it, were visible as an ever moving ghostly white below._

_"My memories of that journey are so different now that we are adults." Polly began. "We had no idea of the dangers we were going through. We could have died at any point."_

_Digory stared down the abyss for some moments while he drew his tobacco pouch from his pocket. "I had an idea of them. Only an idea mind you, or I would have insisted on you staying behind." he lowered his brow at her in a look which would have silenced any of his pupils instantly._

_Polly just laughed and punched his elbow playfully, "I would have been livid if you had. Do you think I would have agreed to staying behind with Aslan, while you got to fly Strawberry without me?! Not on your life!"_

_The Professor was busy lighting his pipe. "Aslan does sometime ask us to do things we don't wish to do."_

_Polly was silent for a long time lost in her own thoughts, as he stood, one hand deep in his pocket, the other cradling the bowl of his pipe as the rich fruity smoke wafted away on the twilight shadows._

_Finally she shared them: "He said once: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself,take up his cross, and follow him." I didn't understand that level of commitment when we were in Narnia, Digory, but now that I have found him in THIS world, and learned to love and trust him, I would be happy to obey him no matter what he said."_

_"Even if it were to stay behind, while I went on an adventure?"_

_"I stayed behind when James went 'on an adventure' didn't I." she said in a small voice._

_The Professor removed his pipe and stood silently contemplating her bowed head, until she raised her eyes bravely to his. He turned back toward the west and took another puff._  
_"Digory... You're not... that is... are you trying to tell me something?" She looked searchingy, earnestly at his face, lit as it was by the brilliant oranges and pinks of the setting sun._  
_"Not at all my dear, you can set your mind at rest on that score. I'm likely to survive you, out here away from all that blasted smog." He let off a large smoke ring._  
_"It's a wonder you don't move out here yourself."_  
_Polly smiled. "If that's a proposal of marriage Professor, the answer's-_

_"No." they both said together, then looked at eachother, and shared a quiet chuckle._

_"Digory,"_

_"Yes?"_

_"Thanks for all the surprises today."_

_"Hrmm"_

_"You didn't need to go to all this effort you know." Polly tucked her arm companionably into the crook his made with his hand in his pocket._

_"I know". He smiled at her and took another deep draw on his pipe._

_They stood there in silence, until the last warm rays dropped behind the mountain and then, without a word, turned back to the dark hut, lit from within,_

_by a single lantern._

The professor stirred and roused himself with a shudder. Perhaps he ought to have put more coal on the fire after all.

* * *

*I almost kept this to myself because when I looked it up Astro turf would not have been invented until ten years after this event.

My husband, who has much experience in evaluating my hair brained building projects, just laughed when I asked him about the viability of transporting a piece of glass of those dimensions through the bush and nailing it in place.

Also, smoking is very bad for your health: Although pipe tobacco is much nicer smelling than cigarette smoke, it was a bit of irony for the professor to tell Polly that his lungs were in much better condition than hers since he was purposely polluting them himself.

The waterfall was for Mrs Soria. Her intrepid daughter can choose which of her photos best illustrates it, but I was thinking of one in the Catlins...


	4. The Paperweight

Professor Kirke stirred the coals thoughtfully and absentmindedly placed a pine log either side of the glowing pile.  
"Why does she always say that?" he muttered to himself as he grabbed a handful of twigs and began laying them on the hot coals one at a time.  
_He had no intention of asking her to marry him of course. They were both too set in their ways for that. He LIKED being able to have a bit of clutter around the place and he knew from his visits to the city that she was a meticulous house keeper.  
Besides, she kept that atrocious cat who kept tripping him up whenever he tried to cross the room._

_...not that he had anything against animals that is. [He had made quite point of learning all he could of zoology in his youth, doing his first thesis on anatomical variations between the larynx of various species and the human with particular focus on vocalisation. _

_Polly was the one female, other than Mother of course, he could trust in those days to not get him all tongue tied. When girls heard about his mansion in the country and his father's flourishing company they got rather frightening: making eyes at him and sauntering over, hips swaying, like the milk cow when she saw him measuring out chicken feed. Some of them had seemed quite rational up until that point, but only Polly had retained her rationality once she saw the farmlet and house. After that fiasco with Amanda and Betty falling in the duck pond when their rivalry came to blows, he had stopped taking girls home for visits when they begged him. _

_In fact he rather avoided girls altogether._  
"There, that's better" The Professor shoveled a dozen coals on the eager flames and placed a third log across the top of the fire so the sparking flames licked around it on their journey up the chimney.

Before returning to his chair, he picked up a pile of student papers from his desk and shuffled through them, checking they had all been marked. He slid them into a large envelope, which he sealed, addressed and franked with an ink pad he drew from the top drawer of his desk.

As he returned the stamps and pad to the over stuffed drawer, moving the contents around a little to make room, a smooth granite rock caught his eye deep in the back of the drawer. He smiled and pulled it out.  
"My old Paperweight." He took it with him to the arm chair and traced the letters scratched clumsily in the surface with his forefinger.

Polly Plummer

and

Digory Kirke

friends 4 evr

It had taken them all afternoon to scratch those letters in the hard surface the summer they turned thirteen. Polly hadn't approved of his shorthand on the last two words, but they were running out of space as well as stamina by that point so he had insisted...

* * *

_The late afternoon sun had long ago evaporated the water droplets from their skin and for the past two hours they had been taking turns with Digory's swiss army knife to scrape their names indelibly into the rock._

"_If you let me have another go I am sure I can make it fit" Polly said. "I can get my writing much smaller than yours."_

"_... and neater too." she added after the knife slipped again almost slashing his leg. _

_Digory glared at her until she looked away.  
"Here you go then." he said, willing to capitulate once he had made his displeasure known._

_It was Polly's neat hand writing that had written the "...ends 4 evr'"in tiny letters below their names.  
The two of them spent the rest of the waning afternoon speculating about how long 4 evr would be, and what might lie between.  
Polly's ambition was to be a mother of a dozen children. She would take them to live in Scotland in an old castle with secret passage ways and a dungeon so they could keep wild animals as pets._

_They had had a good laugh because when she confessed her plan of cleaning out the moat to be used for swimming races, Digory had suggested the addition of crocodiles to give them extra speed. Polly stared quizzically at her friend, a smile on her lips, as she meditatively sucked the moisture from a wet strand of hair.  
"I know what you will become, Digory, -A great explorer. You have such an appetite for knowledge there is no way you could satisfy it within the fours coasts of Britain."  
Digory, got a far away look in his eye. "Yes well... I have always wanted to go to India. Dad brought home so many stories of the people, their customs, animals, foods, beautiful jungle plants and domed buildings... _

_I really want to see them for myself."_

_Polly stretched her legs lazily and rolled over so she could look at him better.  
"I know" she said. "I can see it in your eyes when he brings us home trinkets the natives have made. You get a kind of..." She searched for the right word, "greedy look in your eye."_

_Seeing the indignant words about to spring from His lips, she amended it, "... hungry, I suppose. Not greedy."  
"I should think NOT" Digory spluttered self righteously. "Some cheek you have calling ME greedy when YOU went and scoffed most of the cumin toffee while I was looking at my Jade cup!"_

"_Well I did offer it to you three times and you didn't even answer"she retorted.  
They both sat and fumed for a minute until Polly broke the silence.  
"Don't you see, that just proves my point. You were so absorbed in the relics that you had thought for nothing else. Not even your favourite cumin toffee."  
"Yeah," He answered, putting aside his grudge as easily as it had been taken up. "I couldn't help wondering about the person who carved it for Shah Jahan, more than EIGHT CENTURIES ago. They didn't even know our country existed then... _

_It's kind of sad in a way."_

"_How so?" Polly asked.  
"Well, they were a proud autonomous people -well MANY peoples really, if you consider each caste as a separate people group- minding their own business, completely unaware of the existence of us, as were we, unaware of them. Then suddenly, their lives were turned upside down and now they are part of the Great British Empire whether they like it or not. Their great dynasties are ended for good.  
I just think that is a bit sad."_

"_I don't agree." Stated Polly decidedly as she sat up and grabbed a towel, scrubbing at her tangled and almost dry hair._

"_The British Empire is the best thing that happened to them. Who else was going to teach them how to act civilised and stop eating people and wear clothes and stuff like that, if we didn't?"_

_Digory, snorted with laughter and didn't stop even when she started hitting him with her towel. Finally she threatened to push him off the rock they were on if he did not shut up and tell her what was so funny._

"_The Indians have never eaten people! They wear clothes just as we do, except when bathing of course. They are also one of the oldest civilisations in the world with their own system of government and religion. They had rules to govern 'civilised' society while our ancestors were wrestling each other to death in the fens. Just because their culture is different to ours, doesn't mean it isn't civilised" He had sobered by the end of this speech as he saw the curiousity in her eyes.  
"You are right. I do want to explore and learn about other cultures and peoples, but do you know what I want to know even more than that?"_

"_No, do tell."  
He hesitated for a moment, looking frankly at his friend, assessing her probable reaction.  
"I want to know if there is any people in the world with a creation story involving a Lion singing the world into being." he finally said quietly._

"_Oh"  
Both of them were silent for so long that it wasn't until the summer sun slipped behind the tree tops that Polly stood up, shaking out her towel, and scrambled back down the side of the rock to the riverbank below.  
"Your Mum is going to be mad at us if we're late for tea again, Digory."  
"No she's not." Digory retorted, clambering to his feet and following to where Polly stood pulling on her shorts and top over her bathers. "Mother never gets mad at anything"  
"Okay, 'worried' then. Race you back to the house" she snatched up their towels and clambored up the bank._

"_Don't forget the food things." she yelled over her shoulder.  
Digory sighed and took his time, gathering their cups and the empty pie dish into the basket.  
To be completely honest, he was content with his own company right now.  
Narnia was never far from his thoughts but it was rare that they spoke about it even when they were alone. Polly never denied him when he had the impulse to put his thoughts into words, but he could tell it didn't fill her mind with questions and longings the way it did his._

* * *

Digory thought back over the decade and a half of searching until he finally found Aslan in our world.

"Ironic isn't it. All that expense and travel and Polly found it before I did, right here in England." He chuckled to himself, and reached for his pouch, hesitated, then put it back in his pocket, picking up the small bible on his side table instead.  
"Actually, Polly is right, I do smoke too much" he said, caressing the leather cover with his long fingers. It was plain black, shabby around the edges from being stuffed in his jacket pocket, and the gilding on the pages was all but gone. There were copious notes in the margins and some of the pages had been taped back in, as the binding had given way in places. It smelt of peppermints and tobacco and it was his most Treasured possession: worth more than any of the rare and exotic tomes which graced the shelves of his study,_  
Indeed more valuable, than the whole Kirke estate and Kirke enterprises put together._ He mused to himself.

The Professor reverently, lovingly, turned familiar pages to his favourite verse.

"Behold, You shall seek me and find me when you seek for me with all of your heart."  
He sat back in his chair and let his mind wander, once again, to some of the places his feet had trod on that great search to find Aslan in this world.


End file.
